I don’t claim to speak for all editors. But the vast majority of editors I know are sympathetic to the challenges of getting published and eager to find new talent wherever they can. When they do, their goal isn’t to restrict or to nitpick or to deride, but to bring out the best in a story, as a collaborator, not a judge. From a writer’s point of view, there is a lot of anxiety involved in this process. That’s not surprise. Everyone knows writers are just a little (if not a lot) neurotic, right? But the dirty secret of editors is that we are neurotic too, possibly even more so.

I received this super sweet letter from a mom a few weeks ago about one of the first books I wrote for The Wright Group, A Very Dirty Van. All authors love fan letters but this one is especially sweet. This is exactly why I love writing for kids!

This week, I sped through Moon over Manifest, the winner of the 2011 Newbery (the award given to the book that makes the greatest contribution to children’s literature each year). This is the kind of book I aspire to write as an adult, and the kind of book I loved as a kid. It was sweet without being sappy, full of historical details of life in the Depression and the 1910s that transcend the same-old same-old clichés we’ve all heard about. The novel flips back and forth between two stories. We have the tale of Abilene, a plucky girl spending a summer in the town where her father grew up and struggling to learn more about his life story and therefore hers. Interspersed with her quest are the adventures of a young amateur conman (conboy?) and his buddy growing up in the same town but twenty years earlier—around the time of World War I. I loved the device the narrator used to jump between these two stories—a “seer” in town who spins stories for Abilene by looking at some trinkets Abilene finds in a cigar box in her room. The two storylines are separated by “cuttings” from the local Manifest paper (including ads!)—another clever device that lent a wonderful air of authenticity and character to the setting. But as much as I liked the book, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at the predictability of the Newbery committee—yet another historical fiction nabs the top prize in children’s literature.

I just had the pleasure of reading The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It’s the recipient of a Newbery Honor and a book that’s been recommended to me many times, but for some reason I’d never picked it until now. It was worth the wait! The story of an imprisoned boy thief who is offered his freedom in exchange for stealing a sacred stone from a neighboring kingdom, it’s a gripping tale of adventure sprinkled with rich invented mythology. Anyone who loves Greek mythology will like this book. I believe it’s classified as a fantasy, although it’s certainly far from the kind of fantasy I normally read and edit. There’s no magic. There are no monsters. To me, it felt more like historical fiction set in classic times. What was most interesting to me in reading this book was the style of storytelling the author uses—third person, rather distanced, in some ways a “generic” narrator voice. It’s a style I normally don’t like as a reader and a style I recommend writers avoid.

I should be teaching the first night of my writing class at the University of Washington right now. Instead, I'm sitting in the basement of McMahon munching on a slice of pizza and pretending to be an undergrad. I had to cancel my class tonight because of a snowstorm. Or should I say an alleged snowstorm. The forecasters are predicting an inch of snow will fall tonight and the entire Pacific Northwest is in panic mode. For those of you not from Seattle, allow me to explain.

In a previous post, I vented about the excessive obsession to detail in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I just discovered this article that vindicates my thoughts exactly! Actually, no, this article is even better, because it takes it one step farther, analyzing the flaws of the book from a  perspective of “why” they exist at all. A must read! Stieg...

Are the real winners of publishing’s digital revolution going to be independent bookstores?  Borders has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for years. And now apparently Barnes and Noble is in trouble too. Once perceived as the commercial bullies that drove the beloved neighborhood indies out of business (See You’ve Got Mail) and threatened...